Trump Debate

The sides were me and @monetarist_ opposing Trump and both admins of @Anarchy_America for Trump.

Here is the opening statement I delivered.

First off we would like to thank Anarchy America for hosting this debate. I think this is a wonderful opportunity to debate the most important topic in America. Should we be supporting the orange god king against the literal spawn of satan?
It seems to us that most arguments for Donald Trump boil down to him being the lesser of two evils. We should support Donald Trump because Hillary Clinton is worse. While we recognize Hillary Clinton as evil, terrible and immoral in every way we need more than “he is not as bad”. To quote Ben Shapiro, “I oppose this lesser of two evil argument because it literally justification for any bad behavior… you just point to the other person”. In the current California Senate race we have the democratic Attorney General running against a democratic member of the House of Representatives. While I am sure one is marginally better than the other, should right wing californians support one over the other? Eoin used to live in California, who should he of supported? In the end everyone needs a line. We think Donald Trump crosses that line for principles conservatives and libertarians. Would anyone using this argument support Hillary Clinton if the race was between her and Bernie Sanders? Yes Bernie Sanders is awful but so is Hillary.
Donald Trump has no character. He is an admitted serial adulterer. His ex-wife accused him of rape during their divorce. He reportedly had parties with fifteen year old girls and cocain. He has admitted to sexually abusing women and is currently in a lawsuit for child rape. While he may not be running to be Pope he is running to be the most powerful man in the world. As President he would control the IRS, FBI, FCC, CIA, NSA, Department of Justice and have eminent domain powers. On top of all that, he has already implicitly threatened his political opponents with the IRS and explicitly threatened his political opponents with lawsuits. Maybe we should make sure someone has a little character before we give them the nuclear codes, most powerful military in the history of the world and the ability to legally use force?
On top of being a awful person, he lies a lot. A politico report in March found that he lied every five minutes. He won politifact’s lie of the year last year and has a history of openly denying what he has said on video. One of Donald Trump’s biggest selling points are his Supreme Court picks. He released a list of, admittedly, solid potential justices but their is no evidence he will go through with his list. In fact, all the evidence is to the contrary. Beyond him being a liar, he has said he is fine with a democrat controlled senate and that he will make deals. While making deals may sound innocent it also means he is willing to drop promises made during his campaign. This is a man who had five abortion positions in three days. What makes you think he will nominate even a slightly conservative justice?
Outside of law and order issues, he is just a moderate, unmistakable from a moderate democrat. From his support of raising the minimum wage to free child care to protectionism, to refusing to cut entitlements and to hinting at free college. He has even called for 1 trillion, trillion with a t, in infrastructure spending, a 21st century glass steagall and a new deal for African Americans. Sounds like a certain famous progressive. He has been a democrat his whole life what he is and that is what he would be today. A democrat.
Donald Trump is a sinking ship. The share of hispanics with a positive view of the GOP, according to NBC/WSJ polls, has fallen from 24% in September of 2015 to 21% a year later and 16% now. Hispanics will soon be almost thirty percent of the population. Hillary Clinton is winning by 20 points among generation Y and generation X. __% of people stick with the party they vote for first. Trump is poisoning the well with both these voter groups. He is also losing ground with suburban women and college educated whites. Mitt Romney lost women by 11, Trump is losing by 17. Mitt Romney won the suburbs 50 to 48. Trump is losing the suburbs 45 to 37. He is putting states like Arizona, Utah, Georgia, South Carolina and Texas into play. He is not just a sinking ship for this election it for future ones. Unless the right wants to lose every Presidential election for a generation it needs to abandon Trump.
But some might say this is our last chance. I believe our opponents are in that camp. My question to anyone arguing that is simple. Will you close your account? Will you stop paying attention to politics? Will you leave? Do you actually think one election will make or break us? Or are you just using fear tactics?
Lastly, it is not our fault if Donald Trump loses. He is responsible to get votes and to be a good candidate. It is not out job to support him no matter what. He took the lead in May then collapsed. He took it back in July before collapsing yet again. He almost took it back before the first debate before collapsing yet again. We did not make him hold five abortion positions in three days. Accuse Ted Cruz’s father of killing JFK. Attack a gold star family. Not prepare for any of the debates. Go after a model. Brag about sexually abusing women ten years ago and poorly handle it after it came out. We did not make him defend Validr Putin on multiple occasions. We did not keep him from developing a ground game or be outspent by epic proportions in TV air time. We did none of that. When he loses it will be his fault and only his fault, like it is with any other candidate. Blame his incompetence. Not us
In the end this is a statement that we will not support what ever crap is nominated. While we can not be purists we have to have limits. If the expectation is that we are no better than party lap dogs than our ideas will be treated no better. Besides. would our opponents support Chris Christie? Marco Rubio? Jeb Bush?
To quote CS Lewis, “I feel a strong desire to tell you–and I expect you feel a strong desire to tell me–which of these two errors is the worse. That is the devil getting at us. He always sends errors into the world in pairs–pairs of opposites. And he always encourages us to spend a lot of time thinking which is the worse. You see why, of course? He relies on your extra dislike of the one error to draw you gradually into the opposite one. But do not let us be fooled. We have to keep our eyes on the goal and go straight between both errors. We have no other concern than that with either of them.”
Thank you again for hosting this debate.